The Problems of Biblical Reductionism III

Even if, for the sake of charitable discussion, we can ignore the problem of the canon and the problem of hermeneutical authority, in the end, biblical reductionism, or the dogma of sola scriptura, fails to answer the question, By what criterion/-ia does one determine the truth among competing and contradictory interpretations, both presently and through history? That is to say, why does sola scriptura, if it is in fact necessary to Christian faith and practice, fail to achieve and maintain holy consensus over time?

Adherents of sola scriptura, by necessity, are forced to not only admit diversity of belief and opinion but to affirm it and celebrate it. They must do so because sola scriptura necessarily results in divergent, contradictory and mutable doctrines, doctrines which not only contradict contemporaneous beliefs but historical ones as well. I do not mean to give the impression that the Christian faith must be a monochromatic, rigid, verbatim recitation of formulaic confessions. But there is a difference between the diversity of orthodox expression exemplified by St. James’ insistence on the necessity to faith of works, and St. Paul’s rejection of works as the basis of salvation; or St. Gregory of Nyssa’s expression of the plurality of the Godhead in terms of dynamis, and St. Gregory Palamas’ expression of such plurality in terms of energeia–and the pseudo-diversity that contradicts, such as between those Christians who insist that the Eucharistic elements really do become the Body and Blood of Jesus, and those who do not; or those who insist on the sacramental essence of baptism and those who do not. One form of diversity is shaped by the consensus of the mind of Christ in the Church, the other is shaped by private interpretation elevated to co-authority with the Scriptures. Diversity is no excuse for contradiction, and contradiction is the pervasive milieu of sola scriptura.

As St. Paul writes in the Ephesian letter:

And He gave some to be apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some shepherds and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, to the work of ministering, to the building up of the body of the Christ, until we all might come to the unity of the faith, and of the full knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of the Christ, in order that we may no longer be infants, tossed to and fro by waves, and carried about with every wind of teaching, by the sleight of men, in craftiness toward the systematizing of error; but speaking the truth in love, we might grow up into Him in all things Who is the head–the Christ, from Whom all the body, joined and knit together by what every juncture supplieth, according to the energy of every single part in measure, maketh for itself the increase of the body, to the building up of itself in love.(Ephesians 4:11-14)

Clearly, then, the contradictions in doctrine and practice among those who adhere to the dogma of sola scriptura mean that sola scriptura cannot achieve the unity of faith, the consensus of the mind of Christ, that is one of the essential characteristics of the Church, as St. Paul here expressly notes. If this consensus does not exist, then the claims of those lacking that consensus to be the Church are suspect.

Some will argue that the picture here in Ephesians 4 is an eschatological one, pointing usually to 1 Corinthians 13:9-12; or, to say it a bit more accurately, the unity of faith St. Paul refers to in Ephesians 4 will not be fully realized until the appearing of Christ. Until then we see in a glass darkly.

But this merely illustrates the problem of time for the dogma of sola scriptura. We should remind ourselves of Jesus’ words to his Apostles:

“But whenever that One, the Spirit of truth, should come, He will guide you into all the truth; for He shall not speak from Himself, but whatsoever He shall hear He shall speak; and He shall announce the coming things to you. That One shall glorify Me, for He shall receive of Mine and shall announce it to you.” (John 16:13-14)

Here Jesus promises his Apostles revelation of all the truth by the Holy Spirit. We can only assume that the promise to the Apostles was fulfilled. But if the promise was fulfilled, then unity of faith was a reality for the apostolic Church. The question we must ask then, in light of all the contradictions of belief and practice among present-day Christians, is, what happened to that unity of faith? If it no longer exists, then we must assume that the Church no longer exists. But if we cannot ascribe to the belief that the Church no longer exists, then we must also maintain that neither has the unity of faith been lost.

Sola scriptura fails to realize the unity of the faith that is an essential characteristic of the Church. It fails both in terms of consensus, and in terms of time. For either it must deny the consensus of the faith to which Scripture clearly testifies as a fulfilled reality for the Church, or it must deny that the unity of the faith of the Church can be maintained over time. So, either heresy and schism must be stronger than the faith of the Church, or time must be stronger.

And, in fact, this is precisely one presumption upon which sola scriptura rests: that the pure faith of the Church, and thus its consensual unity, was lost subsequent to the time of the Apostles. (Though it must be recognized that adherents of sola scriptura differ among themselves when and to what extent this Church lost the purity of her faith and thus consensus with the apostolic teaching.) But all this is just another way to say that the unity of the Faith was lost, and with it an essential characteristic of the Church. And in any case, the onus is upon sola scriptura adherents to demonstrate that their idiosyncratic doctrines are, in fact, the mind of the Church. They can only do so by either appealing to the Scriptures apart from or by privileging their idiosyncratic interpretations over any historic consensus of the Church, and thus force upon the Scriptural texts, and themselves, conformity to private interpretation. To the extent that sola scriptura adherents justify their own interpretations by appeal to the historic consensus of the Church, they simply give witness to the unity of the faith, the consensus of the mind of Christ, that has remained through time.

Conclusion

As I have argued from the beginning: The primary problem with sola scriptura is that it is not to be found anywhere within Scripture, nor, I might add here, within any testimony of the Church of the first millennium, prior to the Great Schism. It is thus a dogma that is extra-scriptural and extra-traditional and either refutes itself on its own terms, or begs the question of the authority of the one asserting the dogma as a norm for all Christians.

But even if we accept sola scriptura on its face for the sake of discussion, I have shown that there are three other problems fatal to the dogma of sola scriptura: the canon, hermeneutical authority, and consensus over time. Since sola scriptura cannot resolve these problems, it cannot provide an authoritative voice to the Church of the will of God. It is, then, simply a polemical tool in the hands of those who wield it to set aside the authority of the Church, which is to say, the presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church, who led the apostles into all the truth. It is also to deny the perseverance of the Church and her Faith through time. For these reasons, and its own internal contradictions, sola scriptura is not a Christian doctrine.

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